Welcome

About
us

Eyes For East Africa is the website name of the Kwale District
Eye Centre Charity that operates in a poor rural district on the
Kenya Coast. The Centre was founded 1993 by UK trained ophthalmologist Dr Helen Roberts, now resident in Kenya.

There are many cases of child and youth blindness, mainly preventable
and symptomatic of poor diet and parental ignorance. The most common
cause of blindness is cataract, for which treatment is by phacoemulsification
surgery and the insertion of intraocular lenses.

Since 1993, 70,000 new patients have been registered at the Centre. This figure does not include all the patients we see, as many need to return for ongoing follow up and care. Many thousands of patients, who have walked through our doors, are still receiving support and eye care services both at base, in schools and in the field.

In addition to the patients seen at the clinic, over 275,000 patients have been seen in the field.
Over 27,100 eye operations have been performed, of which 22,851 were sight-restoring cataract operations.
In remote parts of Kenya, where the centre can only provide short-term help, over 23,219 patients have been treated. The half-year report for January to June 2012 is now available, please click here to
view it and to view reports from earlier years.

If you would like to make a donation online via PayPal please click the Donate button to the right, for other ways to donate please see below or go to the Donations page.

The clinic is an official training centre for the University of Nairobi, Department of Ophthalmology. Click here to visit the University's official web site. A short video of work at the Kwale District Eye Centre is available on YouTube.

Making Donations and the Eye Give Shop

You can make a donation on-line or
by sending us a cheque.

The 'Eye Give' shop allows you to tell us how you want your
donation to be used. You have a choice of eye care items including £5 for a pair of reading glasses, £60 for a cataract operation, £360 to pay a trained nurse’s salary for 1 month and more. You
can make an Eye Give donation on behalf of others, which is ideal for
birthdays, Christmas, anniversaries and other special occasions.

Please go to the Donations page and the Shop page
for further information.

Above: Some of the people who have benefited from a donation made on your behalf…..Thank
you

Training

This is perhaps the most important thing we do long term, both clinically and in the community.

Training of Medics:

KDEC is approved by the Medical Practitioner and Dentist board as a training centre for specialist recognition in Ophthalmology. It has been training Ophthalmology students from the University of Nairobi. Ophthalmic registrars do a practical attachment in both clinical work and surgery. KDEC has trained 6 ophthalmologists so far.

Kenya Medical Training college (KMTC) sends Ophthalmic Clinical Officers / Cataract surgeons to KDEC for their practical attachment. 8 students have been trained to date. Training of nurses in ophthalmic skills upgrading and Training for Facilitators for this is planned for June 2012 in Kwale.

In cooperation with other main eye-care service providers and general medical institutions in the coast region, we hold regular caucus meetings and Continuous Medical Education for ophthalmologists and clinical officers in post.